This Roasted Carrot Salad has wonderful flavors that come together with crisp apples and savory pistachios making the most amazing salad! Easy enough for a weeknight dinner, and beautiful enough to serve for a holiday meal.
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Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios
If you follow me over on Instagram and watch my IG stories, you’ll quickly see that I make a stop at my local farmers market just about every Saturday morning. I do this pretty religiously from June through November, and always seem to find some wonderfully fresh and delicious fruits and vegetables. This Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios is a recipe loaded with many of my favorite farmers market finds.
Carrots and apples are now in their peak, and are incredible in this delicious Roasted Carrot Salad. Here’s how this easy, farmers market salad comes together.
Step 1: Start by roasting the carrots
Grab a big bunch or two of those beautiful, orange carrots from your farmers market. Once you get them home, cut off the tops, rinse, peel, and then slice somewhat thinly, on the diagonal. Feel free to slice any way you wish, however, these longer cuts of carrots look great in the salad.
Toss with olive oil, garlic and a little big of salt and pepper, and roast on a sheet pan at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. At the 10 minute mark, I stirred/turned the carrots just to ensure they were roasting evenly. Once done roasting, remove from oven and let the carrots cool to room temperature.
Twenty minutes seems to be the perfect amount of time to roast the carrots. Softened, but still slightly firm, the carrots hold up well in the salad. When roasted with the garlic, salt and pepper, the carrots come out with an amazing flavor. You’ll want to eat these right from the pan – I definitely had more than a few!
Step 2: Toss the cooled carrots into the salad
Once the carrots have cooled to room temperature, they are ready to be added to the salad. Toss the carrots with spring mix (or your choice of greens), sliced apple, green onions, pistachios and goat cheese. I chose spring mix because it had a nice variety of color and texture.
As for the apple, honey crisp are in season right now, and add superior flavor and texture to the salad. Green onions are a nice, mild onion choice, and the pistachios add a great color and crunch to the salad. I particularly love goat cheese, and it’s the perfect mild, creamy addition to this salad. Another option would be blue cheese crumbles for a strong cheese option. Your Roasted Carrot Salad is almost complete!
If you’re making this carrot salad in advance for a dinner, refrigerate the salad WITHOUT the dressing. Dressing the salad and then refrigerating it will basically turn everything to mush. You can make the dressing in advance, just store in a separate container (no need to refrigerate) and dress the salad before serving.
Wondering what to serve with carrot salad? These are great options:
- Easy Slow Cooker Turkey Breast
- Air Fryer Coconut Shrimp
- Maple Glazed Air Fryer Salmon
- Brown Sugar Balsamic Grilled Chicken
- Italian Grilled Chicken
- Apple Cider Glazed Pork Chops
- Italian Mini Meatloaf
- Air Fryer Turkey Burgers
Step 3: Mix the dressing
The honey balsamic dressing for this carrot salad is fantastic! It is simply made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. When making this dressing I literally mix it up in a glass measuring cup. It comes together in just a minute or two. So simple, and way better than anything that comes in a bottle.
Dress the salad just before serving, or serve the dressing on the side for your guests to dress on their own.
Looking for some healthier homemade dressing recipes? Check these out:
- Healthy Homemade Italian Dressing
- Greek Yogurt Ranch Dressing
- Healthy Caesar Dressing
- Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing
- Yogurt Dill Dressing
- Lemon Olive Oil Dressing
This delicious Roasted Carrot Salad is perfect side salad for just about any dinner. It’s simple enough for a weeknight meal, and beautiful enough to be served at your Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter dinner.
This carrot salad would also be fantastic topped with my Balsamic Grilled Chicken and enjoyed as an entrée salad for a fantastic healthy lunch or light dinner. Enjoy!
If you loved this delicious Roasted Carrot Salad, check out some of my other delicious salads and sides:
- Cranberry Apple Salad
- Blueberry Spring Mix Salad
- Roasted Rainbow Carrots
- Sauteed Carrots
- Pistachio Fluff Recipe
- Cranberry Citrus Salad with Goat Cheese & Pecans
- Apple & Fennel Salad with Blackberries
- Kale Apple Salad
- Italian Chopped Salad
- Creamy Broccoli Salad with Apples & Cherries
- Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins
Here’s the easy, delicious recipe for my Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios:
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Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios
Equipment
- Sheet Pan These USA stainless steel sheet pans are great for one-pan meals!
- Cutting Boards This 3-Pack of non-slip cutting boards are a fantastic tool for every home cook.
- Santoku Knife This 7" santoku knife comes with a bonus 5" knife. Sold through Macy's and at an AMAZING price I've never seen anywhere!
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. carrots peeled, sliced thinly on the diagonal
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 5 cups spring mix about 5 heaping handfuls
- 1 apple sliced thinly
- 2 green onions diced
- 1/4 cup pistachios shelled and roughly chopped
- 2 Tablespoons goat cheese crumbles
Dressing:
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 3 Tablespoons honey
- 1 clove garlic minced (about 1 tsp.)
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a sheet pan, place the sliced carrots and garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and toss together to coat the carrots. Evenly disperse the carrots on the pan so they are in a single layer. Roast carrots for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Stir carrots half way through (at 10 minute mark) to ensure they are roasting evenly. Once roasted, let carrots cool to room temperature.
- In a large bowl or platter, add the spring mix and toss together with the cooled, roasted carrots, sliced apples, onion, pistachios and goat cheese. Chill until ready to serve.
- Just before serving, mix together the dressing. In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. Feel free to dress the entire salad before serving, or serve the dressing on the side. Enjoy right away.
Helen at the Lazy Gastronome says
Pinned this beauty! Thanks for sharing at the What’s for Dinner party – can’t wait to see what you’ll bring next week. Have a fabulous week ahead.
Life Diet Health says
Erin what a colourful and flavoursome salad- I especially love that you’ve added pistachios! Thanks for sharing at Fiesta Friday (I couldn’t see your links?)
Miz Helen says
This is a very special fall salad that we will really enjoy! Thanks so much for sharing with us at Full Plate Thursday. Hope you have a great weekend and come back soon!
Miz Helen
Ann says
I’m always looking for salad recipes…pinning this one! Thank you for sharing at Party In Your PJs!
Catherine Baez Sholl says
This salad recipe looks so delicious! I love roasted carrots.
angie says
this is a delicious sounding salad. Perfect for those fall days with a rustic feel thanks for sharing
come see what we shared at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
Miz Helen says
Congratulations!
Your post is featured on Full Plate Thursday this week! Thanks so much for sharing it with us, we have pinned it to our features board. Have a great week and come back real soon!
Miz Helen